KINGSTON, Ont. (January 22, 2016) – The No. 8 Gaels (9-3) won a hard fought three set battle (25-20, 26-24, 25-20) against the York Lions (6-7) this Friday night in OUA men's volleyball action at the ARC Main Gym.
Mike Tomlinson (Stratford, Ont.) led the Gaels in their win with 13 kills, six digs and a .400 hitting percentage.
Marko Dakic (Mississauga, Ont.) was another key performer for Queen's as the former Lion smacked down 11 kills and picked up seven digs. For York, Arthur Swarcz headed the offensive with 14 kills off a 0.360 percentage totaling 17 points.
GAME FLOW The visitors didn't waste any time putting up the first two points of the match to grab the early lead. The Gaels kept close behind York managing to catch them at 10 points apiece where the teams began to trade points with the Lions grabbing a narrow 16-15 lead at the technical timeout.
Queen's burst into the second half of the set scoring their first lead of the night at 17-16 and taking off from there. A handful of kills from
Chris Brunet (Calgary, Alta.) put the Gaels up 23-18 forcing York coach Wally Dyba to call a timeout. The Gaels kept it up to score the final two points heading into the second set up 1-0 against the Lions.
Mirroring their first set performance York got up 2-0 before fighting again for dominance as the Gaels tied them at two points to then pull ahead. The second set continued as a competitive battle with the Gaels keeping in front of the Lions until the technical timeout where they held onto a slim one point lead.
The Lions forced the Gaels to call their first timeout of the match as they regained their footing to get ahead 21-18 off five consecutive points. Off a
Tyler Scheerhoorn (Belleville, Ont.) block the play turned back in the Gaels favour as they made it to a set point. A big smack down from Swarcz against Queen's only managed to delay the inevitable as the Gaels grabbed a 26-24 second set win.
It was another well matched set in the third frame as the OUA teams matched each other point-for-point with four lead changes and 11 tie points in the third. By the technical timeout the Gaels had picked up enough momentum to hold a three point lead of 16-13. The Lions started to see a comeback slip out of reach as the Gaels kept ahead for the final points of the match. Off a service ace from
Scott Brunet (Calgary, Alta.) the Gaels won the set 25-20 to culminate their three set sweep of the York Lions.
FINAL SAY? "York came out guns blazing and they played as well as they could," said head coach
Brenda Willis. "They had one player with international ability, Arthur Swarcz, who we didn't contain very well early on. We asked the servers to be more aggressive because if York couldn't pass well enough, they wouldn't be able to get the ball to him. We made a few more serving errors than I would have liked being that aggressive but we're going to continue to work on that. We want to be an aggressive serving team without worrying about errors."
BY THE NUMBERS 10 – Total team blocks for Queen's.
30 – Assists by
Jamie Wright (Kingston, Ont.).
0.435 – Queen's percentage in the second set.
UP NEXT Catch the Gaels back in action tomorrow night when they will host the Nipissing Lakers at 8:00 pm, following the women's match in the ARC Main Gym.
